Despite the claims of the Jell-O Pudding ad, you really don't need a tutu to dance ballet. Pacific Northwest Ballet's artistic director Peter Boal has demonstrated all season long that ballet can be danced in styles both edgy and distinctly underdressed.
It has become popular to pooh-pooh the tutu, to dismiss it as a relic of ballet's past. Yet, the torn pair of jeans, the bare (male) torso or the leotard in flesh tones doesn't inspire quite the same "ooh, aah" factor as a full complement of tutus swishing by the audience.
PNB's current production of "Sleeping Beauty" comes with tutus galore as well as a host of other handsome costumes. It's gaudy enough to send every tutu fan spinning in joy through the lobby (as evidenced by the number of 10-year-old girls practicing their twirls during the intermissions).
Costume and set designer Peter Docherty created a "Sleeping Beauty" that looks as if it had popped straight off the pages of the great Edwardian fairy-tale books. The forest that surrounds Beauty's palace is an Arthur Rackham wood full of twisty trees and treacherous vines, where royal courts disport in costumes colored by Maxfield Parrish's paintbrush.
This is a fairy-tale ballet for those who have not forgotten that their first and fondest memories of ballerinas involved pink tulle and glittery crowns. Choreographer Ronald Hynd and his wife, Annette Page, who acts as assistant to her husband on his projects, both danced at the Royal Ballet in England, partnering each other in such works as Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty." They also appeared as partners of the other great names of that era of the Royal Ballet, dancers like Margot Fonteyn or Rudolph Nureyev. So it's not surprising that Hynd's choreography for "The Sleeping Beauty" carries with it all the grand traditions of this ballet as well as a little of his own sly English humor.
Hynd has all the big Russian-style scenes requiring the ballerinas and their partners to cross and criss-cross in complicated patterns, while giving his audience moments of pure English Christmas pantomime, especially in the appearance of Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat in the final scene. The courting cats, danced by Jordan Pacitti and Maria Chapman, got a houseful of giggles from the small fry on opening night.
Designed for the English National Ballet, this "Sleeping Beauty" requires all of PNB's resources. The full company of dancers is needed as well as literally dozens of PNB students to fill out all the roles. With the usual multiple casts, more than 100 dancers are needed to bring off this production.
And they do it delightfully, even better than the première back in the 2000-01 season. Everyone seems much more relaxed with the choreography, the crowd scenes move with greater fluidity and the leads have simply grown more spectacular.
On opening night, Kaori Nakamura was the perfect-in-pink Princess Aurora, holding pose after pose like a bronze created by Degas, only suddenly to break loose from her cavaliers and twirl like a dervish. This contrast between the need for absolute stillness and then quick-quick footwork makes Aurora a devilish role to dance. But Nakamura dances it like an angel, beautifully partnered in Act I by a quartet of Dukes (Christophe Maraval, Lucien Postlewaite, Karel Cruz and Pacitti).
A tiny woman, the Japanese ballerina also creates a 16-year-old fragility for the role of the teenage princess, so pleased to be able to join the adults in her birthday dance and so surprised to be pricked by one of her presents.
In Acts II and III, Aurora's main partner is her prince, Florimund. As the royal who battles through the thorns to kiss the Beauty, Olivier Wevers acts more subdued than usual (Florimund is supposed to be a pensive prince) while dancing with his usual high-voltage energy.
Leading a squadron of good fairies, Carrie Imler is a robust, no-nonsense Lilac Fairy of Wisdom, able to whip around on one foot, wave her wand and dispense good advice at the same time. Quite understandably, when this lady in a lavender tutu tells Florimund to go kiss the girl, he does it.
Out to cause mischief, and having really good time being bad, Timothy Lynch stomps about the stage as Carabosse, the Wicked Fairy, in a killer black costume and red boots. Everyone loves to hiss Carabosse, and Lynch takes his bows with appropriate menace.
This Tchaikovsky ballet is longer than "Nutcracker" (a little over three hours with intermissions), and parents should consider bedtimes when deciding which performances to attend. Some of the smaller ballerinas in the audience had nodded off by Act III and missed the arrival of a posse of nursery-rhyme characters to celebrate Aurora and Florimund's wedding.
But, whether they slept during Act III or stayed awake until the last bow, surely all the children and adults in the audience went home to dream of tutus after this "Sleeping Beauty."[[In-content Ad]]
